Sliver Gender ideas

Slivers do not have biological sex, because any two slivers can mate and have a child if they are willing there is less importance of what gender means. They do have societal divisions that humans would often place as gender, as well when they mate around 90% of the time it is with a sliver of the other gender. Gender can also change for a sliver, with about 20% changing in their lifetime, this is not seen as a social taboo and is a normal part of life and society.

For a sliver to be male a better idea to think of here is “active” this is they do active activities and create, they will hunt and build, make tools and art etc. These slivers have more drive to go out and create.

For a sliver to be female a better idea is to think of this as “passive” they work to maintain things, they will cook, fix buildings, maintain crops and harvest etc. These slivers continue cycles and stuff already set In motion, but they will sometimes put their own spin on it.

Gender plays a less key role in society, as activities can be done by any sliver just some are better at others. The biggest effect is that when mating if a male and female sliver mate is creates a balanced child, one who has features of both parents and thusly can decide its gender.

Sliver life and death

Slivers are long lived beings; some speculate that they have a natural life span but its hard to tell at the current moment. They are quite durable and due to the modular system of limbs they are quite hard to kill. This brings up an average life span of around 250 years. Some of the oldest slivers are around 800 years old.

At the beginning of life, from separation from their parents to the first 5ish years of life is a stage of heavy learning stage where they have little direct responsibilities and do a large amount of discovery, this is like adolescence in humans

From the ages of 5 to around 25 they will start to settle into a role, this means finding a gender and job as well as potentially a tribe.

After 25 they will go through cycles of mating with another sliver if they so choose around every 20 to 35 years and this will happen around 2 or three times in their life.

After this their libido simmers and they continue to be a member of society, working and living.

The main ways that slivers die are sickness, main segment failure or accidents. If parts of the main segment break or stop working than it can’t be repaired much and so will cause eventual death. Sickness also can cause problems within the brain or with limb connection and this can cause death. Lastly is simple injury, if their brain is damaged it often fatal as well as important internal organ such as their heart, stomach, and lungs.

Sliver technology

This is technology before the landing of humans. But make note that little changed with the introduction of humans due to deliberate decisions from the governments of various nations to mostly leave the slivers to their own.

Slivers mostly live in small villages of a few dozen members; they farm and forage food as well as hunt. They lack real weapons as they will simply have differently made limbs to fill that purpose.

They do have fire, and its quite easy to start fires from the higher percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere. This also means that fire can get much hotter. This combined with high percentages of surface metals in the ground at flora and fauna means that they are a quite developed metal craft. This is used to make tools such as materials for building, watering storage, containers but it mostly used for decorative purposes such as jewelry or art.

While villages are the most common, some larger cities exist with many thousands of members, when this happens more complex systems such as sewage and transportation networks must be made, carts and larger transport exists to carry large amounts of goods.

Sliver culture

Slivers are largely concerned about roles within the village and city, many slivers are known for what they do. Bonds also form between those from different places but with the same role, two hunters from different villages might connect with each other to share ideas. Slivers also can have hobbies, stuff that may not be their role but that they do for fun. Culture is hard to grasp because its so fundamentally different and alien.

Sliver Religion

The slivers have a few main religions, and each varies in their dedication to their beliefs, some are very active and others have no belief at all. Often larger cities are more religious than smaller villages but this is a trend not a rule.

The church of the one, this is the belief that all slivers are merely shards of one greater being, they seek to have all slivers merge peacefully into one being and then that single being will become god. The way they practice this is by long periods of time spent connected to one or more slivers for non mating purposes, they believe that the more they are connected the closer they are to god, this is enforced by an effected call memory bleed where after a long period, often many years of connection the two slivers minds will start to blend into a single consciousness.

The church of experience, they believe that only through experience and different activities they can gain spiritual fulfillment. This often involves novel experiences and large amounts of travel making them nomadic people.

The church of the eldest. This is a group that follows the oldest slivers alive, they work for them and belief that there is great wisdom with a long life, they them selves seek a long life as well.

The church of golden light, these slivers believe that the following of the king, a single sliver mind that is reborn over and over again is important. This king in notated for having a golden colored head, this is a very rare mutation and so its thought that this sliver has and will live many lives, gaining spiritual fulfillment and that their followers can glean a part of this enlightenment.

The church of exclusion, this group is not a religion that is spread but more one that is self discovered by each sliver that follows it. They believe in self-sufficiency and no connection to other slivers, they are also discouraged from living with others but this is up the decisions of each sliver that follows it. These beliefs do vary and this church is more a grouping of a. set of ideas rather than a strict code.

The church of the 6, this is a group that has long sense worshiped the idea of the number 6 and the hexagon and believed it to be sacred, when humans showed the slivers the carbon atom and its naturally hexagonal structure this religion flourished as its believes have been proven.

Sliver language

The sliver language is a complex set of multi layered communication. In general most slivers prefer connection for sending ideas to each other, but other methods exists.

The most basic of these is limb gesturing, this is stuff like pointing and moving the libs to convey the most basic of information, this is done when hunting or when a very basic idea needs to be communicated fast, its also non standard and so it can vary from different regions.

The second form of communication is a loose set of drawings and symbols that carry meaning, these are often left as static marks or directions for others. around 8 to 10 of these symbols exist and they are standard across the planet, this is due to a long ago shared genetic memories and common exchange.

The third form of communication is a set of a few thousand symbols, much more complicated than the second set this is used for writing longer and formal things or names. It is variable on what symbols means what and so its only used in cities most often and will sometimes require an interrupter to read it property.  These function like Chinese logograms in their meaning, there does exist a simple grammar but it is loose and not always followed. This set can carry much more information but does require much more prior knowledge.

These are the main systems that slivers use to communicate with each other before the arrival of humans, they would continue to be used after humans but some change does occur.

Sliver agriculture

Slivers have been capable of agriculture as well as animal husbandry, using tools and complex calendars to track season cycles. They also practice mixed land usage, crop rotation, and complex food making. While a large part of the food from Slivers comes from hunting, many times these lands where hunting occurs are not completely wild, it will be a controlled area where the amount of animals hunted are tracked as cause over hunting and maintain population stability. This also means that in the hunting areas certain animals are not hunted at certain times of the year, often corresponding with mating cycles of said animals.

Slivers semi-wilds are areas where food crops are grown in mixed usage with domesticated animal as well as natural growths like trees and foliage, often smaller crops and animal feed will be grown here, but plants like fungi and small root vegetables are grown here.

Slivers in general follow a 4 cycle practice for farming, 3 years of crops and 1 year to let the field lay fallow. The three main crops are a simple grain, which grows about 3ft tall and can be used for bread and beer making. A ground tuber, much like the earth potato but larger being around the size of a cantaloupe. Last is a type of orange bean that is commonly eaten. Many other crops exist but these are the most common

Sliver eating habits

Slivers need to eat in accordance to their number of limbs and segments. They mostly have a meet based diet but they are full omnivores and eat ample plants as well. A sliver will need to consume around 10,000 calories a day for the main segment, around 5,000 per day for additional segments and around 100 per day per limb. They also need on average around 5 gallons of water per day. They will eat on average 3 meals a day with 2 main meals, a large morning meal often made of vegetables and preserved foods but with a small amount of freshly prepared food. A mid day meal that will be smaller and informal and an evening meal that will be mostly fresh food and the hunt for the day.

Slivers do have the capability to drink beer and other alcohols, but do to differing brain chemistry the alcohol only provides a sleep causing effect instead of the many that it can cause in humans. For this reason beer when it is drunk is done so in the late evening before sleeping.

Sliver names

Slivers have a complex naming structure, instead of being given a name by the parents as in humans, and one that is rather arbitrary or with familial components. Sliver names are self made, and have potential to change. Due to their language a name is often a notion or simple assortation of the image of a sliver, many slivers in this way are given names by other that reflect their personality or occupation. Many other slivers may choose a name by making a distinct feature on themselves, paints and making on the body, a unique limb, and jewelry are the most common ways of doing this. Some many even choose names based on notable events or locations such as a hunt or a large city. The first sliver name that humans translated over was “sliver ring” and it was the clan leader of the closest clan to the initial portal location. This name was done into the language of the scientist Royakhan as “Ahvla Ynel”. Due to the lower scale of social interactions often a sliver may only know of around 50 or so other slivers and so names do not need to be as complicated as they are for humans.

Other sliver names that may exist are given below:

“Red head stripe”

“scented of berries”

“curved front scythe”

“came from the city”

“newly separated”